BlizzCon Tickets info

Blizzard began selling BlizzCon tickets at 1:00 PM by 1:02, the queue was around 20,000 people (i.e. likely sold out).

I kept refreshing at 12:59 PM and got in once it hit 1:00 PM and I was still 600th in queue. So just a FYI for people looking to purchase tickets in the future, you need to be on the site immediately or you will lose out.

China Travel Tips

Wudaokou area:
-Pyros Pizza: This is a great hang out place with mostly international students. A lot of people from the States or Europe go there. The pizza is really good, 85 to 100 RMB about. Towers of beer that serve about 8 cups of beer costs 50 RMB. They have beer pong every Thursday night and play a whole variety of good music. On St. Patty’s day they serve green beer and green jello shots. The location is right past Lush after you turn right prior to arriving to the Wudaokou subway station. It’s next to Propaganda/Sensation.
-Lush: This place is open 24 hours and has free wireless. The burgers are great and it’s a place with a mixture of international students and locals. During the weekends, they play a lot of music and the middle of the place becomes a dance floor. It’s on the second floor above a Chinese bookstore. If you walk there from Wenjin Hotel, you cross the street and you walk towards the Wudaokou subway station and right before you get to the subway station, it’s right at the corner and it has a blue banner with black letters that says “Lush.” Burgers are 35-45 RMB and sodas are 10 RMB. Beer is around 15-25 RMB.
-Propaganda/Sensation: These are both bars/clubs. On Wednesday they have a cover of 50 RMB for open bar with a large variety of drinks. The dance floor is in the basement and it’s pretty big. The place is pretty dingy looking and dark but a lot of people go there. Around midnight the place gets pretty packed until 3-4 AM. Proganda usually has more people than Sensation since Sensation just opened not too long ago. It seems that Sensation has more of an international population and Propaganda has more Chinese people there. The location is right past Lush after you turn right from the Wudaokou subway station.
-Helen’s Cafe: This is a nice backpacker’s kinda bar. Tsingtao is 15 RMB and most other drinks are 20-25 RMB. Good ambiance and music. It’s about 400 meters or past Propaganda/Sensation.

San Li Tun Area
Vics/Mix: Big club that’s really nice. Drinks are 40 RMB generally. On Thursday night they have a 100 RMB cover for open bar. Big dance floor and the club is really loud and smoky. The location is by the Workers Stadium and across from Mix. Mix has more Asians while Vics has more of an international population. You can get a table for 800 RMB and you get a few bottles of Grey Goose and bottle service.

How to Switch Web Hosting Providers

Since Made2own Sucks, I figured I’d write a post on how to change web hosts if you use the WordPress CMS. I’m not saying this is the best way to do it but this was how I did it and it worked.

1. Find a new web hosting provider. There is a big forum all about web hosting providers where you can get lots of information about different web hosting providers.
2. Download your files from your web host using some sort of FTP Software. I use FileZilla since it’s a great program. Be careful not to pull too many files at once because on some servers, they ban you IP if you pull too many files down too quickly.
3. Export your WordPress files by going to Tools and then clicking on “Export.”
4. Export your SQL database (I was told to do this, but I never needed to import them later on, but better safe than sorry)
5. Change name servers of your domain, i.e. ns1.madeown.com to whatever the name servers are for your new web host, they should be in an e-mail they sent you after you signed up with the service.
6. Install WordPress on your web host by transferring all of your original WordPress files to the server and then follow the WordPress Installation process.
7. Assuming you’ve installed WordPress correctly, you can then click on Tools and then hit “Import” and find your old exported file and bring that in. All your posts and such will be as they were. You will have a “Hello World” post from the new installation but for the most part, everything should be as it was.
8. You should be done!

Some issues that I had in the process was some of the files I had made didn’t seem to convert correctly to the new server. For me this was mostly the theme layout everything else was basically the same. You might want to transfer over your old header.php and other files if you found the WordPress installation changed your header.php.

How to back up and transfer your Microsoft Exchange e-mail account from one computer to another

Since I’m graduating from Purdue, I will no longer have access to my Exchange account after a few months so I wanted to know how to backup all my files since I organize all my e-mails.

After reading a few websites that gave little hints here and there, but nothing fully comprehensive, I decided to write this blog article so it will tell people how to do it.

Note: This process will remove all files from your Exchange server to your Personal Folder. Only do this when you’re done with your Exchange account.

With Outlook 2007:
1. Go to Tools –> Account Settings
2. Click on the “Data Files” tab and click “Add…”
3. In the dialog box that pops up, click on “Office Outlook Personal Folders file (.pst) and click OK
4. Find a folder to place your .pst file and then click OK. This .pst is your Personal Folder for your e-mail
5. Close the Account Settings dialog box
6. Now go to your e-mail and drag all of your Exchange e-mails to your Personal Folder
7. Close Outlook 2007 fully
8. Find the place where you saved your .pst file and drag it to a jump drive or copy it to a CD/DVD
9. Copy the .pst file over to the other computer
10. Open up Outlook 2007 on the other computer
11. Go back to Tool –> Account Settings
12. Click on the “Data Files” tab and click “Add…”
13. Find the .pst file you just copied over
14. Click OK and close out the dialog boxes
15. Your files should now be fully transferred

Cable Modem Leasing

I’ve had Comcast for the past year and I never really knew that you could buy your own cable modem. I’ve been leasing their modem for $7/month and well, I just realized I forked over $84 to lease a pretty bad modem. Now multiply this by several years in which I’ve had Comcast on and off and well, I must’ve spent a few hundred dollars on something I could’ve just bought. Anyway, I figured I’d save myself some money in the future and so I bought a Motorola Cable Modem. It got good reviews and Comcast says it is compatible with all cable modems, so I guess that works.